


and then i'll go

by honeyvoiced



Category: Dynasty (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Breakup Sex, Emotional Manipulation, F/F, Smut, Unhealthy Relationships, angsty smut, breaking up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:41:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24807145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeyvoiced/pseuds/honeyvoiced
Summary: That was usually as far as they would take their play. The beginning of act three, then they’d pull back.
Relationships: Kirby Anders/Fallon Carrington
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28
Collections: Hesitate





	and then i'll go

**Author's Note:**

> I, uh. Sorry.

Fallon was good at pushing her own limits. She certainly enjoyed her comfort zones and places of familiarity just like anyone else would, but she was no stranger to risk as long as it was calculated. She had an even more reckless side, too, that was borne less from an interest in thrill-seeking and more from selfishness and arrogance. Jump first, look after. She was the main character in her story - how much danger could she ever _really_ be in? 

Coming into Kirby's room without knocking while she packed was a calculated risk; pulling the redhead’s fingers from her mouth and letting her hand fall around her neck in suggestion when she hadn't yet clarified that Kirby _wasn’t_ going to strangle her was reckless. 

She didn't usually push this hard. The two of them always worked in consonance with each other every time they fell together into bed, but even their slower, quieter, more passionate times didn't seem quite this intense by comparison. Kirby’s fingers twitched, and Fallon couldn't bring herself to catch her eye. She knew the other woman was waiting for a sign - some confirmation that she wasn't misreading the signals - so Fallon squeezed her eyes shut and nodded, gasping softly when she felt fingers tightening around her neck.

The combination of that and her other hand working its way into her underwear was almost overstimulating, but she needed more. Spreading her legs so hard she knew she would have a cramp afterward, she pressed one foot down to the mattress and rocked needily against the other woman's hand. 

She could quite literally _feel_ the other woman growing annoyed with her when she asked for more, her voice coming out hoarse and barely above a whisper despite the demand seeming much stronger in her throat. But whatever annoyance Kirby was feeling in response to her neediness wasn’t vocalized - the redhead only pinned her legs open by digging one knee into her thigh, letting go of her neck to grab a firm handful of the hair at the base of her neck, instead.

  
It was bordering on painful, yet somehow wasn’t quite enough - the irony wasn’t lost on Fallon, but she tried to focus on the physical, the here and now, yanking her girlfriend - her _former_ girlfriend, as of only an hour ago - closer still to kiss her roughly.

* * *

**_ONE HOUR EARLIER_ **

“You’re so childish.”

Kirby’s words came out of her with a surprising amount of heat. Her tone was soft, but exhausted, like she’d just exhaled all of the rest of her anger into those three words.

“That’s rich, coming from you,” Fallon scoffed, following her even as she tried to evade her, all but climbing over the bed in her hurry to keep up with her. 

Neither of them had particularly healthy arguing tactics, but they harmonized together so well like some kind of manipulative, emotionally abusive symphony from hell. When Fallon bobbed, Kirby weaved, back and forth, twisting each other’s words. For Fallon, it was often making things worse than they were, but for Kirby, it was usually self-softening a blow that she should have taken in full force. 

“We don’t need to have this conversation right now - maybe after you calm down.”

A distinctly well-thought-out stab. The plausible deniability of Kirby being ‘nice’ and ‘understanding’, layered on top of infuriating condescension. It was a phrase the redhead had crafted carefully over the years to simultaneously toss Fallon into a blind rage without villainizing herself.

Laughing humorlessly, the brunette followed her down the hall, continuing to berate her.

“I’m sorry that I _still_ expect us to have some modicum of fucking communication in spite of whatever _this_ whole tantrum is.”

“It’s not a tantrum, Fallon,” Kirby’s voice was getting shakier, and Fallon knew that the veil of calm and collected would fall away in moments if she continued to press the right buttons. 

“Right, right, _this_ is much more… manic-pixie-idiocy. A _tantrum_ would be -”

“What you’re doing, right now?” Kirby suggested, cutting her off and glancing back at her briefly before heading down the stairs.

“I should -” 

“Push me down the stairs?” Kirby cut her off a second time, cocking her head to the side. It hadn’t even been close to what Fallon was going to say, but it made her blood turn cold for a moment. 

When Fallon didn’t answer immediately, Kirby continued on her way, getting all the way to the bottom of the steps before Fallon caught up to her again.

“So that’s it,” Fallon breathed, feeling her hands shake with angry, manic adrenaline. “You’re just leaving. You’re mad at me, so you’re going to leave.”

The truth was, she’d have probably done the same. They’d been fighting all week by the time Kirby had approached her and told her she’d be taking a trip back to Australia. A fight lasting more than a couple of days was uncommon for them, and it was already feeling like the beginning of the end _before_ Kirby had come to her. 

A therapist would probably tell her that she kept picking fights with Kirby to have a sense of familiarity - or maybe because she didn’t think she deserved happiness. Given her abandonment issues, it wouldn’t be too surprising that she would push people away before giving them the chance to do the same to her. 

The truth was, though, that Fallon simply didn’t half-ass anything. 

Kirby got right in her face, whether by miscalculating how close they were, or because she was really _that_ angry, and glared.

“I told you it was only for a few months! But seriously, at this point, I might make it longer.”

That was usually as far as they would take their play. The beginning of act three, then they’d pull back. The idea of the work that this incident was going to take to rebuild from made Fallon feel suddenly tired, though.

“Maybe you should just make it permanent.”

“Yeah? You think so?” Kirby’s voice was much, _much_ angrier, then. She drew closer, so close that Fallon could literally smell her shampoo. “Fucking great, then. Maybe I will.”

Standing her ground, Fallon resisted the urge to cross her arms.

“Y’know, Fallon,” Kirby started. “We -”

She hesitated, then seemed to gather her nerve to say whatever it was, and then stopped again. The sound of sensible heels on the marble tiles nearby made them both freeze - the sound of staff approaching. They _had_ been a little loud, now that Fallon thought about it. 

“Never mind.”

Turning on her heel, Kirby headed for the door, letting herself out and leaving Fallon alone with her own anger.

* * *

As Kirby’s knee dug into her thigh, Fallon could feel the bone worrying a bruise into the skin there and reflexively, spitefully pictured the new two-piece bathing suit she would wear by the pool to put it on display when this was all over. Sympathetic-Kirby was so doting and gentle with her - lately, with all of their tiredness of each other, there had been a void where playful-Kirby and adventurous-Kirby had once been. More deadly than any argument, it was the apathy that had crept into their relationship and grown like a cancer, and while Fallon usually instigated the fighting, knowing Kirby would follow along, the rare fights that Kirby started seemed to come from a place of bored frustration. Fights were an injection of much-needed passion, though they didn't always end like this, with the redhead on top of her, teeth to her neck and fingers inside of her. But every time, once they separated, angry and breathless, the other woman was apologetic and embarrassed that some kind of _Mr. Hyde_ possession had driven her to intimacy.

They broke up, though. Fallon had forgotten, even though an hour had barely passed. There wouldn't _be_ a post-sex softness. Kirby wasn't going to roll over in the morning and slip her arms around her hips and mumble _'I'm sorry, let's not fight again.’_ into her ear.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Fallon reached for Kirby’s face and pulled her closer, kissing her hard and feeling her already pulling away. 

“Did you finish?” She breathed, pulling back to look the brunette in the eyes. Her own had darkened from arousal, lips wet, and swollen.

“Yeah,” Fallon lied through a breath, nodding quickly and moving to kiss her again. She wasn't given the chance, though, as the redhead pulled away completely and began to prop herself up.

She could see that Kirby was weighing the lie in her mind. She always knew when Fallon lied to her - the decision being calculated was whether or not to pick the fight. With a resigned sigh, a moment later, the redhead just nodded and swiped her hair back from her own face.

“Okay.”

“I- are you not going to-” Fallon gestured to the bed when Kirby stared blankly at her. Even in the muted afternoon light, partially dimmed by the curtains over the windows, she looked exhausted. Despite being a couple of years younger than Fallon, the stress had visibly aged her.

“What?”

Surging forward, yet another reckless decision, Fallon kissed her - only once - then mouthed down her jaw and neck. Kirby didn't react, for a moment, clearly mentally calculating another decision before she let Fallon guide her to lay back again and quietly raised her arms to help the brunette pull her shirt over her head. 

It wasn’t like her to be careful with anything - not when she was angry - and Kirby knew that. Fallon couldn’t blame her for the confusion, but she pushed past it and tried to focus on the task at hand.

* * *

**_TWO WEEKS EARLIER_ **

Feeling the woman beside her shifting awake, Fallon flicked her thumb against the corner of her tablet screen to turn the page of her virtual newspaper. The headline before her vanished and the screen reloaded with the next one just as the redhead sat up and stifled a yawn.

“I didn’t hear you come to bed last night.” Her accent was always at its thickest right when she woke up in the morning, like the activities of the day itself were what wore it down and out of her by the time she was taking her _Ambien_ and rolling over with little more than a ‘ _g_ ’ _night, Fallon’._

“I was up late,” Fallon replied, without looking over. She didn’t offer anything by way of a better or more elaborate excuse, but Kirby didn’t ask for one, either. Pushing her glasses up a little further, Fallon squinted at the screen and then pinched it to zoom in on a photo caption curiously. 

“I had a dream about the mac and cheese from Walter’s,” Kirby sighed, beginning to dig around in the drawer of her side table. 

“Yeah well, don’t even think about it. We have dinner for Karina’s birthday, tonight, remember? Light lunch.”

Next to her, Kirby opened her box of _Nicoderm_ patches and shook one out onto the bed in her lap with a short, derisive laugh.

“God forbid I ruin _that_ meal.”

“Don’t be shitty,” Fallon replied, keeping her voice even. “It’s too early.”

“Pot, kettle. You know she doesn't even like me.”

Fallon opened her mouth to snap back, but stopped herself, trying to focus instead on controlling her own agitation at having to listen to Kirby struggle with the packaging of the nicotine patch.

The redhead shimmied her pajama top off of one shoulder and slapped the patch in place, taking a few audible deep breaths before flopping back against the pillow again.

“What the hell are these?” Fallon asked, finally noticing the box and reaching for it. The redhead reached for it blindly as well, but Fallon snatched it up before she could, holding it out of her reach. “Step ones? Doesn’t that sort of defeat the purpose?”

“The _purpose,”_ Kirby hissed, reaching around Fallon to grab the box and ripping it away, “is to quit smoking.”

“Yeah,” Fallon rolled her eyes and shut off her tablet, tossing it gently into the center of the bed as she climbed out of it to head towards the closet. “I’m sure loading up on enough nicotine to kill a teenager is a much healthier alternative.”

“Oh my god,” Kirby groaned from the bed. 

Not dignifying her with a response, Fallon kicked her slip into a pile on the floor and pulled her previously picked-out dress from its hanger. It was her own fault for antagonizing her girlfriend, and she knew it - Kirby was clearly annoyed, but probably not nearly as much as Fallon already was, and she was the one who now needed to shrug it off and go into work to be productive. 

“I’ll be back at six, be ready to go.”

In lieu of a goodbye, and already planning a breakfast she could order in at her office to avoid staying in the manor any longer, Fallon swiped her bag from beside her vanity, heading for the door with a two-finger wave.

“You’re leaving already?” Kirby’s voice sounded significantly less annoyed already. If Fallon wasn’t already annoyed, herself, she would’ve taken a moment to admire the personal control that it would have taken to do something like that.

“Mhm.” 

Not even glancing back, Fallon yanked one of the heavy double-doors of her room open, strutting out.

“Love you!-” Kirby called after her, her voice carrying out into the hall.

It was petty not to answer. Fallon really only intended to ignore her for the sake of not being annoyed any further, but as she reached the bottom of the stairs, the possible potential weight of her silence pressed into her chest, and she sighed defeatedly as she pivoted on one heel to head back upstairs.

Stopping on the bottom step, she shook the sleeve of her dress back to check her watch, groaning inwardly at the time. If she wanted to have time to eat once she got in, she needed to have left a moment earlier. She hesitated, then headed to the door instead, tugging it open and walking out into the unforgivably hot morning sun. Kirby was a big girl, she’d be fine.

* * *

There was something about the way that Kirby had recoiled when Fallon kissed her - a reflex she was used to when the other woman was angry with her - that continued to replay over and over again in her mind as she gently adjusted her grip to keep her legs open, rolling her tongue over her and listening for _any_ reaction, any sound to encourage her to continue or warn her to stop.

She understood the sentiment. Kissing was romantic - it was affectionate and sweet and that was _not_ the mood for the afternoon’s activities. What the redhead wasn’t grasping, though, was that _this_ still felt too romantic. It was impossible for Fallon not to think about loving her when she was like this. 

She was _so_ quiet, but Fallon knew every inch of her - every sign to look for and every tell that she couldn’t hide. The way the skin of her stomach fluttered under her fingers when her breath caught; the reassuring rub of her heel against the back of Fallon’s waist when she found the right spot - these tiny hints all guided her along, even when the other woman was too angry to speak to her aloud. 

Kirby was usually more susceptible to hearing her out when they were finished, though. Torn between wanting to stall, and wanting to finish up to skip to making up, Fallon slowed herself down and lifted her head to look up at the other woman momentarily. She wasn’t looking, and even when nothing happened for a minute, she steadied her gaze on the ceiling above her with intentional determination.

So she didn’t want to talk. Fine.

Dropping back between her legs and pulling her closer by the hips, Fallon mentally compartmentalized, letting her conscious mind wander back into her own little world. The longer she stayed like this, pressed between her legs and bringing her closer and closer to the edge without ever pushing her over it, the longer they were still _them._

Snapping at her to leave and not come back had been a mistake. But Kirby _had_ to know that she never really meant it. They’d been together for too long - romantically and otherwise - for the redhead to read too deeply into her intentionally low blows. _This_ should have been reminder enough, the way they fit so well together and knew each other’s secrets, like the way Fallon could tell exactly when to pull back and readjust, waiting each time for the telltale sting of Kirby’s hands tightening in her hair to let her know she was close.

The redhead startled her, though, when she alerted her of her miscalculation. Too in her own thoughts to realize the signs, Fallon froze against her for a moment when her legs stretched, toes curling and her back arching up as she climaxed near-silently. 

She was barely given the chance to properly admire her, breathless and tense, before the redhead almost wrestled her back onto the bed, pinning her arms and staring down at her with more determination than Fallon had seen on her features in weeks.

She hadn’t _ignored_ Fallon’s earlier lie about finishing - she’d stored it away for safe-keeping. _That_ was something she’d picked up from Fallon. A tactic of emotional undermining that she had, in turn, learned from her parents. Some lies were better confronted after they’d had a chance to ferment, and this was hardly any different.

The pair of them stared at each other quietly, and for a brief moment, Fallon was sure she was about to lean down and kiss her, but she didn’t. Instead, she pressed her lips to the center of her throat, in warning, hesitating until Fallon carded her fingers into her hair in permission before slipping back down between her legs again to finish what she’d started.

* * *

**_FIVE MONTHS EARLIER_ **

The way Kirby had adjusted to life in the manor over the last couple of years had been a strange transformation to witness. The upgrades to her manner, her clothing, and even the way she carried herself at events was such a far-cry in maturity and poise from the Kirby that had returned for Steven and Sam’s wedding, what felt like eons prior. 

When they were alone, she was still Kirby - even now, her unique charm shone through under the layers of high-end makeup and expensive jewelry - but to watch her like this was an event of its own. 

People had always been drawn to her. Even when they were kids, she was bright and sweet, and that admiration had clearly followed her despite the contrasting unpopularity that she’d been saddled with at a young age. She carried herself elegantly, and Fallon wasn’t afraid to admit that she was mesmerized.

Still, there was something about having that secret to herself: none of the men or women at this stuffy party had any idea that the woman they were talking to had actually gotten tipsy on mimosas at breakfast accidentally and needed to take a nap before lunch - even now, the man who was trying to explain hedge funds to the Australian while she politely feigned interest probably thought that she was some kind of foreign up-and-coming trophy wife to someone else at the party, not that she had spent almost the entire night before watching puppy videos on her phone, and shaking with repressed laughter when she tried not to wake Fallon. (It didn’t work.) 

Fallon knew that side of her, and it was somewhat thrilling to know that the affection was mutual. She got to have _that_ Kirby to herself because _that_ Kirby wanted to be attached to her hip at every spare moment just as badly as Fallon did her. She felt almost dizzy with love. 

As the conversation beside her dwindled, Fallon gently linked their arms together and glanced around the room for the nearest server. She’d been looking for a quiet moment for just the two of them since they’d arrived, and as she spotted someone with a yet-to-be-opened bottle of champagne, along with the fact that her father was nowhere to be seen, Fallon finally saw her opening. 

“Would you excuse us, for a moment?” She asked the man before them, whose name she had already forgotten. He stopped before he could ask another question, gesturing for them to step aside with a small, forgiving smile. Ignoring the confusion on Kirby’s face, she led her along, trying to beeline for the waiter before the bottle was popped - without breaking into a full-on sprint and drawing any unnecessary attention to them. 

“Fallon, what’re you -”

The bottle was opened, and Fallon sighed in disappointment before turning on her heel and readjusting their course for the kitchens, instead. It was a more conspicuous choice, but it would have to do for the time being. The idea of being alone with her girlfriend, finally, with champagne, and kissing her in _that dress -_ it all fueled Fallon into boldness.

“I just wanted to -”

She trailed off, slowing her steps as she spotted Anders rounding the corner from the kitchen and stopping against the wall to watch them.

“... to what?” Kirby asked as they slowed to a stop, unhooking their arms and squeezing her hand questioningly before dropping it.

“... introduce you to Eman Santos. Did you two meet, yet?” Fallon replied, after a brief hesitation. She gestured to a woman standing alone near the fondue fountain, her eyes flicking back to Anders guiltily for a moment before she cleared her throat and turned her attention back to Kirby.

The redhead followed her gaze, smiling easily, and then shook her head.

“The author? Not yet.”

“Then… let’s go do that,” Fallon insisted, leading her away once more, and trying to shake the uncomfortable feeling of being surveilled off of her shoulders.

* * *

Even with being trapped in her own head, it was hard to fight off her own natural physical reaction to the woman on top of her. The earlier lead-in combined with this softer, more resigned touching had Fallon out of breath and forcing herself to keep her cool before she knew it. 

Kirby knew her too well. Her fingers slid up her sides and raked back down, wrapping around the curve of her hips and hiking her down the bed, closer to her face as she flattened her tongue to her, not letting her escape back into her thoughts and think about anything other than how close she was to climax for a brief, disorienting moment. It was hard to remember exactly what sex was ever like before it was them; before it was like this.

Kirby’s knowledge of her body was almost alarming until she considered how well she knew the redhead just as intimately. They could do this blindly, in the dark, finding every spot in the exact order and way that it needed to be touched, manipulating each other back and forth the way they could when they fought, with considerably more favourable results. 

The thought that no one would know her like this again startled Fallon off of the edge that she had been so close to reaching, slamming her back to reality in a wave of frustration that made angry tears prickle up in the corners of her eyes, her hands balling into fists in the sheets on either side of herself. 

If her reaction had made any impact on the other woman, she didn’t show it, continuing to work her over without breaking her steady rhythm. That alone was reassuring enough, and as Fallon slid one hand back into her hair in encouragement, she repeated the same mantra back to herself in her head, over and over. _She’d done it before, she’d do it again. She’d done it before, she’d do it again._ Before Kirby, she’d felt the same way. No one would know her as her last had, but she’d picked up the pieces and started _this_ relationship, and history’s pattern only told her that she’d do it again once the two of them were done burning this relationship to the ground, too.

“I’m close.” She hadn’t been until she said it aloud, as if manifesting it, and then it was suddenly true. Kirby’s hand pressed her hip down to the bed when she tried to rock upwards, a gesture surprisingly gentle given her earlier demeanour, and Fallon squeezed her eyes shut once more, pretending to the best of her ability that it wouldn’t be the last time.

* * *

**_ONE YEAR EARLIER_ **

Sitting up straighter in her seat at the dining table, Fallon reached for another apple slice from the platter in the middle of the table and set it on her own plate before reaching for her coffee mug again.

“Okay, Fallon, I think you need to cool it with the coffee.” Sam’s voice snapped her out of her distracted state, drawing her gaze from the doorway back to the man beside her. “You're shaking like a leaf, what's your deal? You nervous, or something?”

“There's no deal.” The truth was, _nervous_ was too negative of a word. _Nervous_ implied that she didn't have faith in the outcome of the morning. ‘ _Giddy’_ felt a little childish, but it was, unfortunately, all she could come up with as a substitute. 

“G’morning!” Kirby’s cheerful tone pulled both Sam and Fallon’s attention to her as she entered the dining room, flopping down into the seat on Fallon’s other side and reaching for a piece of toast. 

“Morning!” Fallon could hear herself match the other woman’s enthusiasm, much to Sam’s confusion, but she breezed past it and handed her the closest dish of peanut butter. She’d found herself doing so more and more, lately. The quasi-flirting twist to their friendship had brought out a sunnier side of herself that she wasn’t too familiar with - but Kirby seemed to like it, which was always a selling point.

“Did you hear the rain last night?” Kirby asked conversationally, buttering a piece of toast and dropping it to her plate as she reached for a second.

“No,” Fallon admitted. “Must’ve been quiet.”

“It was,” the redhead replied, smiling easily to herself as she focused on her food. “It was really nice.” 

Sam swiped the last mini quiche from his own plate and popped it into his mouth, before getting up from the table and rounding to Kirby’s other side, pouring the remainder of his strawberries onto her plate.

“I went to sleep early, anyway,” Fallon continued, watching as Sam left, her eyes dropping back to the woman beside her.

“Oh yeah? Big day today?” Kirby wasn’t even looking at her, pouring a little puddle of maple syrup onto her plate and pushing one of the strawberries into it with her fork. She did nudge her, though, softly, pushing her knee against Fallon’s before retreating back into her own bubble of personal space. The action made the brunette’s breath catch in her throat, and she was suddenly spurred on, her earlier giddiness doubling in intensity.

“Could be,” Fallon replied mysteriously, inhaling sharply before plunging in. “Have dinner with me, tonight?”

It was half-demand, half-question, but Kirby didn’t even hesitate as she reached over and stabbed up a few pieces of bacon to drop into the increasingly-chaotic fray of her plate. 

“Sure. When?”

Clearing her throat, Fallon trained her eyes on a particularly flawless-looking strip of bacon on the other woman’s plate.

“Eight?”

“Okay.” Kirby’s eyes flicked up to Fallon’s face briefly before she focused on her food again, skewering a now syrup-soaked strawberry onto her fork. 

“Good,” Fallon confirmed, her words slowing as she watched the other woman extend her tongue to catch a rogue drop of the syrup before it could drip onto the table, then pop the strawberry into her mouth and move onto the next one. “It’s a date.”

Kirby didn’t answer, for a moment, and with a surge of neediness, Fallon reached over with her own fork and poached the piece of bacon that she’d been eyeing. It was a playfully defiant bid for attention, and Kirby’s squawk of protest filled her stomach and chest with butterflies at having gotten her way.

“Did you hear me?” Fallon asked, holding her fork back out of reach when the redhead reached for the piece with her bare hand.

“Yes!” She giggled, giving the brunette an exasperated look, the laughter evident in both her voice and on her face. There was a pause, as she lowered her hand, and Fallon mirrored her. “Oh.”

Fallon quirked one eyebrow and waited a beat.

“Is that you asking me out?”

The giddiness was melting away to make room for real nervousness, but Fallon steeled her resolve and nodded.

“Yes. Have dinner with me.”

Kirby glanced down at her own plate for a moment, then back up to the brunette’s face.

“Are you going to steal _that_ food off of my plate, too?” The tiniest hint of a grin was pulling at the corners of her mouth, and Fallon felt almost nauseated with relief. 

“Oh, you’re funny.” She deadpanned. Her response broke the dam, sending the redhead into a fit of giggling that only increased when Fallon dropped the bacon back onto her plate, pushing the whole thing closer to her. “Here, please, I wouldn’t want you to starve, oh my god.”

“Stop!” Pushing the plate aside altogether, Kirby grabbed her hand, pausing her annoying actions for the time being.

The two of them stopped to stare at each other for what felt like forever, when in reality could have only lasted a couple of seconds, before Sam returning to the room shocked them apart from one another.

“I don’t know who I was kidding when I said I was only going to have two of these. I’ll work out later. SoulCycle, tonight?” Clearly oblivious to his own interruption, Sam made his way back to the table and scooped another mini quiche from the center plate and took a bite, gesturing in question to Fallon.

“We have plans, already,” Kirby answered for her, smiling apologetically at Sam as she secretly pressed her knee against Fallon’s below the table, out of sight. 

There was a heavy pause, where Fallon wondered if Kirby was going to elaborate, and when she didn’t, she began to second guess whether or not Kirby expected _her_ to explain, but by the time she gathered the courage, Sam had already left.

“I have to finish getting ready,” Fallon turned to look at the redhead again, smiling apologetically.

She waved one hand dismissively, not wanting to talk with her mouth full and having just taken a bite of toast. Fallon stood from the table and slid her chair back in.

“I’ll see you tonight,” Kirby assured her, once she’d finished, turning in her seat to lean over the back of it and watch the other woman leaving.

“Eight o’clock,” Fallon reminded her.

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

* * *

Unable to hold herself together, Fallon tightened her legs around the other woman’s shoulders and whined defeatedly. Bursts of affection and adoration overwhelmed her senses almost as much as the physical toll of her orgasm did, wanting nothing more but to pull the other woman closer and kiss her until the afterglow had faded and the consequences of their day caught up to them.

Not needing the verbal confirmation, this time, Kirby pulled away from her slowly, wiping the corner of her mouth with one thumb before popping it into her mouth and sitting upright.

Detangling herself from Kirby, and feeling suddenly cold, Fallon messily tugged the sheet of the bed over herself, sitting up to draw it up to her chest. She felt sticky from sweat and uncomfortably tingly - a far cry from the bliss of a few moments prior - she cleared her sore throat and gingerly reached up to push her hair back.

If Kirby was equally unsure of herself, she didn’t show it, climbing up from the bed and glancing around before locating her own underwear and stepping into them, grabbing her bra from the floor, next. She dressed in record time, making her way over to her suitcase by the door and digging into the top front pocket of it for her cigarettes.

“You don’t have to… are you leaving?” Fallon could hear her own pitiful sadness in her voice but ignored it, watching Kirby tuck a cigarette behind her ear and pat her pockets down for her lighter.

The redhead only grunted affirmatively in response, glancing around before locating her sweater and grabbing it.

“You could… stay here. We could talk.” Fallon felt her breath catch when Kirby finally looked her in the eye, continuing. “Please?”

Kirby let out a quiet huff of a laugh. A frustrated, humorless sound, like she was too tired to properly insult her anymore.

Fallon could see the gears turning in her mind, though, and knew that the chance was there. She felt bad, leaving Fallon there, cold, and naked, and sad, and the moment she stepped a little closer or reached out for her, she’d have her - like a spider and a fly, time and time again.

She hesitated, and Fallon felt herself sag forward in relief, ready to hold one arm out and make room for her to come sit, before feeling like she’d been dunked in a tank of ice water.

“No. You made yourself pretty clear.”

“Kirby, you can’t -”

The redhead didn’t even dignify her by giving her time to finish her excuse, turning around - no hesitation, this time - and pulling the door open just a crack. Enough space to give Fallon her privacy, but also enough to escape.

The suitcase vanished around the doorframe after Kirby did, and the door was clicked shut before she could scramble to get up from the bed. 

By the time Fallon had located a robe opaque enough to warrant being worn outside of the bedroom, without anything else, Kirby was nowhere to be seen, and even making her way to the staircase only revealed that she wasn’t in the foyer, waiting for Fallon to come after her and stop her, either.

Heading back to her bedroom, she pulled her phone from the nightstand and scrolled through for Kirby’s name, ignoring the burn in her chest as she glanced at their last text exchange from the day prior.

_Kirby: going to be back late_

_Fallon: lmao. sure whatever_

Her thumb hovered over the contact button, and she closed her eyes to give her pride a chance to catch up to her, wondering if any part of herself would have any objection to giving up her last shred of dignity.

She hesitated, taking a breath, before pressing ‘Call’ and raising the phone to her ear to wait.


End file.
